Water on Mars?

The spacecraft that have orbited around Mars and landed on its surface have shown us (via images and data) that there is no liquid water on the surface of Mars. However, these satellite images have also revealed to us features that appear to have been created or carved out by flowing water. In fact, scientists feel...

What Is Your Real Star Sign?

By constructing a model of the constellations in the zodiac, students can learn about the relative motion of the Sun and the Earth. Students can find their own star sign and discover how the view from the Earth will change as the Earth orbits the Sun. The model allows them to see how the night sky changes over a...

Solar Tornadoes

This resource uses the context of tornadoes in the solar atmosphere to investigate circular motion and energy changes. A hole is drilled in the bottom of a washing up bowl and orange pith can be used to track the motion of the water when draining through the bottom and creating a vortex. The Key Stage Three...

Measurements with the Sun

Measuring the diameter of our star This simple exercise allows students to measure the diameter of the Sun using a metre rule and two pieces of card. An image of the Sun needs to be projected on the card using a small hole in one piece of card.

Measuring the number of hours in a day...

I Am a Star *suitable for home teaching*

This resource is based around the chemical composition of the human body and the origin of elements in the universe. Students can input a mass in the spreadsheet to see what proportion of their mass is from elements created in the Big Bang, in stars and in supernovae. Graphs are also shown for the relative...

Hubble's Universe

The aim of this resource is to understand the levels of structure in space – Solar System, galaxy, Universe. The spreadsheet exercise allows students to discover this structure in a graphical form. Students can find more...

How Big and How Far?

How big?
This resource uses scale models to understand the huge differences between the Sun and other stars in the galaxy. The spreadsheet gives scales for the Sun and five...

Earth Sun Moon Distances

Basketball Earth
This resource uses a basketball as the Earth to set up a scale model to the distance to the Moon, satellites and distances such as the thickness of the...

Spectra

This resource contains two activities and accompanying teachers’ notes.

Spectra: A tale of two elements
Students must...

Space Weather Effects

This resource contains two activities and accompanying teachers’ notes.

Effect on a solar telescope
Using images from...